Pear orchard offers heavenly selection

Pam Adams

Tuesday

Oct 27, 2009 at 12:01 AMOct 27, 2009 at 1:17 AM

Depending on which direction you're traveling on Illinois Route 29, the signs appear at Hart Lane, right before or right after Chillicothe. Big red letters on white background point the way to Eden Camp and the pear orchard. The orchard, according to its owner, is the first in Illinois to offer Shingo pears.

Depending on which direction you're traveling on Illinois Route 29, the signs appear at Hart Lane, right before or right after Chillicothe. Big red letters on white background point the way to Eden Camp and the pear orchard.

Driving up a dirt road on a crisp, fall afternoon leads, first, past small groups, scattered and stooped throughout a hillside garden, stuffing large clear plastic garbage bags full of different varieties of leafy-topped white radishes and cabbages.

"This is for kimchi," explains Yong Cha O'Brien, of Princeton, who has brought family and friends from the Chicago area to pick vegetables for the popular Korean dish.

A little further up, through a wide, open gate, Byeong Ho Son and his wife, Kum Ok Son, chat with visitors, dispense slices of pears or the bags for visitors to pick their own vegetables and pears from the rows and rows of pear trees on the flat land just behind them.

"I am Illinois' first Shingo pear farm," Byeong Ho Son says proudly.

Shingo, sometimes spelled Shinko, pears are sweeter, juicier and firmer than their Bosc or Bartlett cousins. They are apple shaped, but they are not a cross between apples and pears and they don't have the gritty texture of some more familiar pear types. They are one of several varieties of Asian pears becoming popular in the United States. And the Sons, natives of South Korea by way of a Chicago suburb, have taken it upon themselves to turn the Shingo pear into a locally grown fruit.

Byeong Ho Son is a Presbyterian minister with a church in Long Grove. However, his father and brother had a pear farm in South Korea, where he learned the basics.

On this particular afternoon, a neighbor, Matt Waibel and his family, also visit to pick their own pears. Waibel's father formerly owned the land.

"From the beginning, I've been excited about watching this come to blossom," Waibel says.

The Sons researched and prayed for a long time before they bought the 140-acre site just north Chillicothe five years ago. They wanted to grow and sell pears and other vegetables, but they also had a larger vision. They wanted to create an Eden, so to speak, full of fruit-bearing trees and vegetables where the sale of the healthy foods would serve as seed money, eventually, for an international retreat center for people of all religious denominations.

Kum Ok Son boils down the philosophy behind their venture in a few simple words. "Body's good, spirit's good."

While living in Long Grove, a friend in this area connected them with ReMax Realtor Steve Nalley, who helped them find the farm.

"They needed something on a hillside with good drainage," Nalley says. "They had done their research about where to grow these kinds of pears. It was an interesting process. The locations where these can be grown is very limited."

They had the soil tested to make sure it would be conducive for growing Shingo pears. Their lender required an environmental study before the couple could go ahead with their plans. They started with a planting of more than 2,000 pear trees and delicately nursed the grafted trees until the first crop came in last year.

"I'm surprised he was able to cultivate Korean pear in Chillicothe," says the Rev. Beunghoon Choi of the Korean Presbyterian Church of Peoria.

Only a few hundred people found their way to Eden Farm last year. Between advertising and word of mouth, this year several thousand followed the signs up the hill to pick and purchase Shingo pears.

Unlike many of their American relatives, Asian pears, including the Shingo, ripen on the tree rather than after they're picked. But most Asian pears, like most of their American cousins, ripen in the fall, which makes for a ripe pear harvest time despite a few cold days earlier.

Individual pears are covered in paper bags on four rows of trees to protect them from disease and frost, Son says.

Shingos also are resistant to fire blight, a common bacterial disease among pear trees. Once picked, they can last for several months in the refrigerator.

At a starting price of $20 for the smallest bags - which holds about 15 pears - O'Brien says the Sons' pears are cheaper than retail or mail-order pears. Pear connoisseurs may be familiar with imported Shingos, wrapped in mesh to prevent bruising.

Shingo pears and root crops are just the beginning of the Sons' vision for the land. They will plant many more pear trees, along with apple trees and a wider variety of vegetables. All along they'll be planting the seeds for their own personal Eden, an international retreat in central Illinois.